With the New Year, there has been a lot going on in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). As the District 1 Board Director serving North Oakland, I want to share recent developments.

Three New Board Directors: We have new directors for District 2 (Aimee Eng), District 4 (Nina Senn) and District 6 (Shanthi Gonzales), and the same commitment to building a full-service community school district. I'm excited to work with these new leaders, and impressed with their ability to get to work on our pressing issues.

Chabot Elementary invites the community to bid on amazing donations by our parents, neighbors, and local businesses. This year's "Gold Fever" auction has a goal of raising $150,000 or more to support enrichment programs and vital services for nearly 600 Kindergarten through 5th grade students who thrive in a local public school where creativity, curiosity, academic excellence, and social-emotional learning are nurtured.

Oakland Tech is Oakland's top-scoring public high school. This year is extra-special because it's our centennial year. Tech's annual Auction and Gala will be held on March 14 at Uptown Body and Fender, 401 26th street, 6-10:30 p.m. Last year's auction sold over 300 tickets and raised more than $90,000 to support our dedicated and hard-working students. Proceeds from the auction are used to purchase textbooks, laptops and sports uniforms, to fund support groups and career development programs, and for related needs.

Rockridge residents have come to appreciate the beauty of the new Broadway Pollinator Garden site, a work in progress by the Oakland Landscape Committee (OLC) and community volunteers. This football-field size Caltrans site at the intersection of Broadway and Keith Avenue hosts hundreds of roses, lavenders, and thousands of pollinator plants providing habitat for bees, butterflies and birds.

In February, the Land Use Committee discussed updates on a number of projects proposed or currently moving forward in the neighborhood as well as neighborhood concerns about the proposed removal of six redwood trees at the former Shell station site at the corner of College and Claremont.

Recently, the six redwood trees on the former Shell station property at College and Claremont were individually red-tagged for assessment as to whether each tree should be removed. Many neighbors and College Avenue shoppers have expressed concern and dismay that Rockridge may be losing a valued community asset, especially in a location that is otherwise, for pedestrians, a bleak sea of asphalt and concrete.

• Yasai Market, at 6301 College Avenue, was opened in 1980 by John Amano. John's sister-in-law is the owner of Berkeley Bowl; John was raised in the vegetable business and worked at Berkeley Bowl before opening Yasai (which means vegetables in Japanese). John sold to current owners Michael and Bu Pak in 1992; they kept the name. When I spoke with Bu about the impact of the Safeway construction, the conversation topic drifted to competition. She reminded me that small stores aren't automatically noncompetitive.

Among a short string of businesses on the northwest side of Claremont Avenue just before it passes under the Grove-Shafter Freeway toward Temescal, Deco Art's stylized green sign stands out. In a location where the Bay Printmakers Society originally made its home in the mid-'50s, a neighborhood artmaking tradition carries on.

We all know that school can be difficult to get to in the morning: not only getting ourselves out of bed, then our children, getting dressed, eating breakfast, but all the countless other things that have to get done before leaving the house on time. Then, walking to school, you have to watch carefully for traffic, especially at busy corner intersections.

When we moved to Rockridge from the suburbs of Detroit almost four years ago, we realized we had landed in a walkable food heaven.

But one notable exception flew in our faces every Sunday morning - bagels, though available, weren't what we were used to. They weren't rolled by hand, boiled with honey, baked on the spot, and of moderate size.

Many people have been asking when the Frog Park enhancements will be ready.

While we received strong support for the enhancements, we are adjusting the design to address concerns raised by neighbors close to the park.

A goal of the enhancements is to provide additional play opportunities for toddlers and disabled children, especially via use of a swing and the spinner. Parents with mobility challenges will find the enhancements make the park more accessible.

Somehow, it happened. We became accustomed to teacher wish lists, peeling paint, extra fees for sports and music, too few (if any) counselors, and the highest student-to-teacher ratios in the nation. Budget surpluses have made things better. Proposition 30, Governor Brown's Local Control Funding Formula directs greater resources to the neediest students.

Esther Ann Hunt McFeely, believed to be the longest surviving Oakland Tech High alumna, left us quietly at age 104 on February 13, 2015, in the presence of her children gathered in the Rockridge home in which she had lived since 1920.

Esther was born in San Francisco January 19, 1911, to Howard and Cecelia Hunt and spent her early years in Nevada City where her grandfather had been a "grubstaker" during the California Gold Rush of the 1850s.

For many of us, kitchens represent a major hub of activity in our homes. Not only do kitchens offer the potential for endless nourishment, they also have a way of becoming the epicenter of social interaction. Kitchens draw us in with their aromas, edible resources and technological utility. It's no surprise that the kitchen is the single most energy-intensive room in our homes, often representing as much as 15 percent of our home energy use.

Bosko's Framing Gallery is starting its 70th year in business at the southeast corner of College and Armanino Court. Currently in the display windows at Bosko's are a colorful variety of objets d'art: paintings by Lynne Bostick, Jason Schoner, and Rip Matteson, watercolors by Wendy Yoshimura, giclee prints by Lois Wachner-Solomon, and vintage pottery.

Although the College Avenue Safeway has opened, there are a number of items that do not yet comply with either the use permit conditions or the settlement agreement with community groups. The groups are submitting a list of uncompleted items to Safeway and Terramar (the new owner of the retail building), as is the city. The groups plan to meet with Safeway in February to resolve those items not yet completed. Please e-mail information about issues you have with the project to landuse@rockridge.org.

Transports was started by Kei Kodani in 1982 in a small space above Barclay's Pub. Kei began the business selling camping and hiking equipment, and it seemed to complement the adjacent store that focused on running shoes. However, when that store went out of business, the salesmen providing that inventory convinced Kei, himself a runner, to carry their lines. Shortly thereafter, Kei moved a few doors up the street and next to the then-location of the Sierra Club bookstore where he remained for 20 years.

Gone are the days of the school PTA when bake sales funded "bells and whistles" for our schools. As OUSD budgets continue their downward trend, more community resources are needed to bridge the public funding shortfall.